A Handful of Crumpled Pages
by Lillielle
Summary: Disclaimer: I own nothing. For the Jury of Your Peers competition. Padma/Pansy. She always knew it would end, but why does it have to be like this?


_Notes: Written for A Jury of Your Peers competition. Song lyrics are from "The Happy Song" by Voltaire._

_Pairing: Padma/Pansy_

_I was looking for perfection  
And it found me, right between the eyes  
All this time we spent in bliss,  
You know, like all things, it has to fade away  
The devil says beware  
Cuz when you ask, you might get what you want  
The devil, he may care  
When you ask, you might get what you want_

Padma knows that all good things must come to an end. She's known it since childhood, when Parvati would get the loving pats, the affectionate squeezes, the new toys, and Padma would get a tattered book scavenged from a rubbish bin. She treasured them-books are her only friends-and when she is Sorted into Ravenclaw, she knows that it is in part because of those old childhood days, when she'd lug around her newest ripped paperback, treasuring each blurred page.

She also knows that Pansy is only toying with her, a school-year dalliance. When Pansy is tired of her, she knows that she will be thrown away like an old book with the cover torn off. Pansy is meant to flourish, to marry well, into some rich pureblood family, like the gilt-edged Malfoys, to have children that are as proper and cold-blooded as she is. Not to skulk in the shadows with a half-blood _girl_. Not to mention her heritage. Racism is still alive and well in the wizarding world, after all. She knows what some of the older Slytherins hiss behind her back about her and her twin, and although she pretends it doesn't hurt, she knows it does.

Pansy never calls her those things. Pansy hexes the ones who do-discreetly, of course, like a proper Slytherin, but Padma knows it's her work. Pansy's kisses later that evening are extra fierce, her teeth bruising Padma's bottom lip. She doesn't mind, returning each kiss as good as she gets. Pansy moans her name into the hollow of her throat, and although it's nothing like Padma has imagined her love life to be (hiding in an empty classroom of all places, as the clock ticks away the minutes past curfew), it's more beautiful than she can remember.

"She's not good for you," Parvati insists, but what would she know? She is popular, she is the Gryffindor princess, the favoured one of the family, as Padma always knew she would be. She does not begrudge Parvati her place, but she wishes that her twin would make more of an effort to understand _hers_.

"She's better than you think," Padma always retorts, but after a while, the words are as thin and threadbare as her socks. Pansy watches from the sidelines, her mouth twisted in an unpleasant smirk, and she turns her face away when Padma tries to kiss her at first, only giving in after a few moments, while Padma pleads with her eyes, and Parvati watches haughtily across the corridor.

"You don't need her," Pansy hisses in her ear, nipping it with her teeth, and Padma doesn't want to consider that she's right. She hurries to class, her book-bag thumping against her side, and ponders a world without her twin. It is a wrong world, it is not right, and yet there is a certain poisoned sweetness to the idea.

Their romance continues, blossoms, a Slytherin and a Ravenclaw, and Padma's never felt so adrift. Parvati's disapproving face haunts her dreams, and Pansy's slow, sweet kisses drug her senses every waking moment. She starts to hope-if only for a moment-that this is something else, this is something _more_.

The war continues, but for the first time, Padma doesn't care about the rise of Lord Voldemort, she only cares about the way Pansy's eyes scrunch up and sparkle when she laughs, the way her hand brushes Padma's before her fingers hook around her palm. She forgets that Pansy's on the other side, that the girl with a pugnacious nose and short dark hair isn't out to help, until the day she walks in on Pansy and Draco tormenting a first year Muggleborn.

"Pansy, what are you doing?" she whispers, but Pansy hears anyway.

"It's war, Padma," Pansy says, shrugging. "I thought you knew."

"No," Padma breathes. "No, I can't..."

"If that's how you feel," Pansy says, calm-faced. "You knew this would end, Patil."

"Not like this," Padma whispers, but Pansy is already turning back around, Malfoy adding a sneer of his own.

It's easy enough to leave, easy enough to forget the flash of pain in Pansy's eyes.

But Padma can't forget.


End file.
